Improvement in the manufacture of axes, hammers



UNITED STATES PATENT 4 OFFICE.

FREDERICK C. OUBIE, OF LANCASTER, PENNSYLVANIA.

IMPROVEMENT IN THE MANUFACTURE OF AXES, HAMMERS, 800.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 82,607, dated September 29, 1868.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, FREDERICK 0. Guam, ofLancaster, county of Lancaster, and State of Pennsylvania, have invented a new and useful Process of Gonvertin g Hammers, Axes, Hatchets, and Similar Edge- Tools into Steel; and I do hereby declare the following to be a full and correct description of the same, sufficient to enable others skilled in the art to which my invention appertains to fully understand and apply the same.

The nature of my invention consists in converting hammers, axes, hatchets, and other edge-tools which have been cast from iron into steel, by converting them first into malleableized iron and then into steel, by the process hereinafter described.

To carry out my invention, I cast ax-heads in any well-known manner. I then convert them into what is known as cast-malleable or malleableized iron by the well known process of heating, and then into steel by the following process: I take a mixture of the following ingredients: Thirty parts of charcoal, pulverized; three parts of soda or soda ash; one part of rock-salt. These ingredients I mix well and cover the bottom of an iron box, such as is used in the process of cementation, with them.

On the layer of ingredients I place a layer of articles to be converted, taking care that only the cutting part, as far as it is to be converted, touches the ingredients; then, upon this part, another layer of ingredients, and another layer of articles to be converted, and so on until the box is filled. The eye part of the ax-heads, or such other parts of tools as I desire to leave unconverted, I cover with sand, so that the ingredients cannot act on that part, which consequently will not be converted. In axes and hatchets the eye part must necessarily be malleable, as it would be too apt to break if converted into steel. Then the box is closed air-tight and placed in a convertingfurnace, where I subject it to the heat from two to eight hours, according to the quality of the iron and ingredients. Under favorable circumstances I have converted ax-heads in two hours.

I do not confine myself to the exact proportion of ingredients, but substantially to the proportion named.

Instead of converting the cast heads into malleable ones, I can form or stamp them from wrought or cast-malleable iron, and then convert them into steel.

I do not broadly claim to convert all kinds of iron articles into steel by my process, but confine myself to hammers, axes, hatchets, and similar edge-tools.

What I claim as my invention, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

1. Converting hammers, axes, hatchets, and similar edge-tools, either cast or made from wrought or cast -malleable iron, into steel by the process substantially as herein described.

2. The new articles of manufacturenamely, hammers, axes, hatchets, and similar edgetoolsmade by the process substantially as herein described.

FREDERICK O. GURIE.

\Vitnesses J. H.'BAUMGARDNER, ALF. F. SPENCER. 

